


A Mile in Your Trousers

by Lauren (notalwaysweak)



Category: Red Dwarf
Genre: Alternate Universe - Trans, Bodyswap, Gender Dysphoria, Masturbation, Other, Trans Male Character, Transphobia, transgender character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-24
Updated: 2014-07-24
Packaged: 2018-02-10 05:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,441
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2013357
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/notalwaysweak/pseuds/Lauren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lister's all for the body swap... as long as Rimmer doesn't freak out when he finds out exactly what Lister's got in his trousers. Or, to be more precise, what Lister <em>hasn't</em> got in his trousers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Mile in Your Trousers

**Author's Note:**

  * For [horselizard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Inconceivable](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1989528) by [horselizard](https://archiveofourown.org/users/horselizard/pseuds/horselizard). 



> Red Dwarf characters do not belong to me and I am making no money off this work of fan fiction.
> 
> Many thanks to horselizard for betaing/trans-picking. (The linked work, 'Inconceivable', came out of the same discussion about transdude!Lister; it's not required reading, but certainly suggested reading.)
> 
> * * *

‘Are you _sure_ you want to do this, Rimmer?’ Lister asked for the ninth or tenth time.

From his point of view, going into Rimmer’s body... in some senses, it was an upgrade, he had to admit. He’d been cruising along nicely with the bits he’d been born with for years, after all, but it wouldn’t be totally awful to have a body with his preferred bits, even just for a while.

The problem was going to be when _Rimmer_ was in _his_ body. It wasn’t the worst way of being outed that Lister could think of, and it was easily one of the most unusual, but Rimmer had some strange attitudes, and things could turn out abysmally.

There was always Kryten, though. Strange, how Rimmer and Lister had been bunkmates practically forever and Rimmer hadn’t figured it out, whereas Kryten had cottoned on the first time that he washed a load of Lister’s underwear. Some stammering about scent receptors later and Lister had regretted asking how Kryten knew.

‘ _Yes_ , for heaven’s sake,’ Rimmer said, fidgeting in the seat beside Lister’s. ‘Kryten, get on with it before this goit decides he’s not getting the deal of the century after all.’

Well. Maybe Rimmer would just be grateful enough to be corporeal after so long dead that he wouldn’t mind which bits the body in question did and didn’t have?

* * *

Rimmer was walking oddly as they left the lab, a little stiff-legged. Lister glanced at Kryten, whose face remained impassive.

‘Keep the Cat entertained,’ he murmured once Rimmer had pulled ahead a few steps.

‘Yes, sir. I’ve been keeping a bucket full of Ping-Pong balls for an emergency.’

‘Will that be enough?’

‘They’re spray-painted silver and rolled in glitter. He’ll be distracted for days, if necessary.’

Lister grinned and made for the sleeping quarters, following his body.

* * *

The officers’ quarters had many advantages over their old sleeping quarters, but Lister’s personal favourite thing was the separate bathroom. It was downright humiliating for _anyone_ to have to take a leak in the middle of the living room, as it were, but he’d spent some time petrified it would out him to Rimmer. It wasn’t that either of them stared, but his packer really didn’t stand up to more than a passing glance, even after all the skin tone matching drama he’d been through.

Then he’d discovered the benefits of pointedly rattling the privacy screen into place; the screen itself didn’t grant much privacy, but the fact that Rimmer fled the room rather than sit there and face the potential smell did the job nicely.

Rimmer had already vanished into the bathroom. Lister could hear the thumps and rattles as he pulled what was probably every possible cleaning agent out of the cupboard under the basin, including the ones labelled CORROSIVE. He wasn’t surprised; the other man had spent part of the time that they were waiting for Kryten to set up the body swap rhapsodising about potential bath gel combinations. Frankly, it was a little telling just how aware Rimmer apparently was of Lister’s bathing habits, or lack thereof.

There was a jingling thump as his jacket hit the bathroom floor. Lister sat at the table, and poked his fingers through its surface a couple of times before deciding that it was too disconcerting to do so. He was counting backwards from ten in his head.

Rimmer shrieked when Lister hit three.

Following the shriek, the silence from the bathroom was still and profound.

‘Lister? Are you there?’ Rimmer’s voice was tiny.

‘Yeah, man, what’s wrong?’

The bathroom door eased open and Rimmer sidled out. His jeans were unzipped and threatening mutiny; the boxers underneath hobbled his thighs.

‘Lister,’ he said, altogether far too calmly, ‘your penis fell off.’

‘Oh, right,’ Lister said as nonchalantly as possible. ‘It does that sometimes. Depends on how tight me clothes are.’

He’d never known before how his face looked when he was utterly baffled. When it was Rimmer driving his muscles, the effect of having been hit in the face with a shovel was even more pronounced.

‘You’re telling me this is _normal_?’

Lister sighed. ‘Rimmer. Go and pick it up off the floor and bring it out here.’

Rimmer looked rather as if Lister had asked him to go and fetch a snake out of its terrarium, but did what he was told, hitching his jeans and underwear up in the process. He sat down opposite Lister and set the appendage in question on the table between them.

‘It’s a prosthetic,’ he said rather unnecessarily. ‘Did you... _lose_ the original?’

‘I never _had_ an original. Didn’t you notice that part?’

Rimmer looked bemused; the truth dawned on him soon enough, though, and he slipped a curious hand down the front of his jeans. Lister’s jeans.

‘Oi. Hands off.’

‘You were all right when you thought I was going to wash your bits,’ Rimmer protested, but he pulled his hand away and clasped them on the table.

‘That’s different.’ Lister wasn’t sure anymore that it was, but Rimmer seemed to accept it. ‘So. Now you know.’

‘This is very strange.’ Rimmer scrunched Lister’s face into an expression that was either deep thought or constipation. ‘So, you’re really a woman?’

‘No.’

‘Who dressed as a man to follow her lover into service to the JMC.’

Lister blinked. ‘Um, no?’

‘Is it Petersen? I bet it’s Petersen.’

‘Do you realise exactly how smeggin’ ridiculous you sound right now? Since when have women needed to cross-dress to get into the JMC? And since when would anyone dressed as a bloke get Petersen’s attention? He’s not into guys.’

Rimmer looked confused. ‘But you have a... you know...’

‘Yeah, but Petersen doesn’t know that. Like everyone else, he saw the way _that_ –’ Lister gestured at his packer ‘–fills out me trousers, and no questions asked.’

‘Oh.’

Lister was starting to think he’d gotten through to Rimmer; Rimmer touched his chest, as if ascertaining the absence of breasts, and then almost, but not quite, touched the packer.

‘So, you slept with Kochanski.’

‘Ye-es...’

‘Does this mean you’re a lesbian?’

Lister put his fist through the table and walked out.

* * *

He gave Rimmer an hour. Five minutes in, he was calm enough to ask Holly to play the gender education and anti-discrimination vid in the sleeping quarters. It was required viewing on enrolment in the JMC, but either Rimmer had forgotten its content or, more likely, never internalised it in the first place. Whether he watched it now or not was up to him. For his own part, Lister was going to sit in Kochanski’s quarters until he no longer wanted to beat Rimmer to death with his own light bee.

Bloody Rimmer. The git had no idea how lucky he was. To not have been vaguely aware that something was wrong for years but unable to articulate _what_ until his first period. Rimmer might have had a smeggy childhood, but at least he’d had it in a body that matched his brain.

Lister had grown used to making do with what he had. He wasn’t totally happy but he wasn’t totally unhappy either. But to see Rimmer treat his packer like it was something dirty and wrong... that put him right back, in his head, to the total horror he’d felt the first time he’d menstruated, to the stomach-churning feeling of wrongness that his counsellor had told him was dysphoria.

That was a better memory. Being told he wasn’t alone. Getting the first prescription for T. Changing his name, changing his clothes, gleefully burning the stupid skirts and dresses that his foster family had bought for him. Divorcing himself from femininity the way that Rimmer had divorced himself from his family.

He’d have to bring that up if Rimmer kept being a pig-headed goit.

Lister checked his watch. Thirty-five minutes. He’d resolved to give Rimmer a full hour. He wanted to talk to Kryten, but Kryten was still on Cat distraction duty.  Unfortunately, since he couldn’t touch anything but himself, that left him at a loss for things to do to keep himself busy while Rimmer – while Rimmer did whatever he was doing in Lister’s body that Lister was going to go on assuming involved showering and possibly decontaminating it.

Two minutes later Lister made a hypocrite of himself as he unbuttoned and unzipped Rimmer’s trousers. It was all right, he reasoned. Instead of the old rule of looking but not touching, he was just going to touch and not look. Happy as he was with ways to get off in his own body, if this was the only chance he had to have a flesh and blood cock of his own – even if that flesh and blood was computer simulated – then he _had_ to know how it felt.

He didn’t hesitate, drawing Rimmer’s cock free of the other man’s ridiculous tight briefs and wrapping his fingers around it. Although he’d decided not to think about it, Lister couldn’t help but notice how it fit into his hand; solid and warm, extending enough beyond his loosely closed fist to make him wonder how exactly Rimmer could stand wearing his underwear so tight.

Then he started moving his hand, and all other thought fled in favour of focusing solely on this one unfamiliar body part, this one bit of flesh ( _light_ ) that was suddenly the locus for a good deal of overwhelming sensation.

Lister had tried a number of products over the years, from simple strap-ons with attached bullet vibes to fancy VR equipment, all of which promised to deliver an authentic experience.

He was now quite sure they were all lying.

He scrabbled at his shirt buttons with the other hand, pawing the fabric aside, raking his nails across his chest, sighing when they didn’t hit the fine ridge of scar tissue he was accustomed to. For that matter, Rimmer had better muscle definition than he did; there was even more than a hint of actual abdominals, Lister found as he ran his hand lower.

The way he was stroking his – Rimmer’s – his cock felt good, but he found that if he did it just a little harder, just a little faster... then he had to back off again because he was damned if his first orgasm like this was going to be over that fast.

Then he made the mistake of opening his eyes.

He wasn’t quite sure if it was seeing his hand on his cock that did it, or whether it was the fact of whose hand and cock it actually was, but suddenly he was coming so hard that, had he been corporeal, he would have made a hell of a mess of Kochanski’s bunk.

Dazed, he flopped back against the pillow. His first coherent thought was, _Is that it?_ It had been amazing, true, but it was different to his usual experiences, that seemed to involve rather more of his whole body. This had been so much more focused.

‘Blimey,’ Holly said, her tone clearly amused, ‘you really can’t keep your hand off it, can you? Even when it’s not yours.’

Lister rolled his eyes towards the vidscreen on the wall, but it was blank. ‘You watched that?’

‘You ran off on your own after punching a table. I was worried.’ Holly slunk on screen, looking less embarrassed than Lister personally thought she should.

‘You’re a smegging pervert,’ Lister said, not without affection. ‘‘How’s Rimmer?’

‘I think if he could set the shower to boil, he would.’

‘That mad?’

‘That _grubby_ ,’ Holly clarified. ‘He’s been scrubbing your toenails for the last five minutes, as far as I can tell. I can’t see into the shower.’

_Probably a reason for that_ , Lister thought. ‘Did he watch the vid?’

‘He did, actually. Funny thing though, it looked almost like he was crying by the end. Then he went into the bathroom and shut the door.’

‘Rimmer? Crying? The last time he cried was when he–’ Lister thought about it. ‘I don’t remember him _ever_ cryin’. Do you?’

Holly looked prim. ‘That’s a matter of confidentiality, Dave.’

‘Come on, Hol. You just watched – you know what you just watched. Like you give a smeg about privacy.’

‘I really can’t. It’s part of his psychiatric evaluation and those records are sealed.’

Lister sighed and stood up. ‘Can you give me a change of clothes, then? Somethin’ _I’d_ wear? If I’m gonna be in this body for two weeks, I’m not wearin’ these briefs the whole time.’

* * *

The shower was still running when Lister got back to the sleeping quarters. He didn’t hesitate before walking in and leaning against the wall.

‘Hey!’ Rimmer squawked, attempting to cover himself with a soapy loofah. ‘At least knock!’

‘You don’t have anything I haven’t seen before,’ Lister said, although he’d never seen it all from quite this perspective. ‘I just wanted to make sure you were all right.’

Rimmer lowered his hands to his sides. His – Lister’s – cock was hard and covered in bubbles. The T had given Lister three inches; at least he'd caught that much of a break, and it looked even better when he wasn't peering past the curve of his own belly to see it. Lister felt a stirring in his own borrowed body’s boxers in response. As if things weren’t already complicated enough as they were. ‘I’m fine. What are you staring at?’

‘Me,’ Lister admitted. ‘It’s different seein’ things from the outside.’

Rimmer relaxed and started rinsing soap off his arms. ‘I know what you mean. I felt the same way with that double of mine. I’m still not sure if I’m that much of a prat.’

‘You are,’ Lister said automatically, ‘but I can live with that. Look, there’s something important you need to know about and I thought I should tell you before you got dressed.’

Rimmer’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Something important, and I need to know while I’m still naked? Don’t tell me you’ve got tentacles somewhere that I haven’t looked yet, m’laddo.’

Lister surprised himself by laughing. ‘Don’t tell me you haven’t already looked everywhere.’ Rimmer just shook his head. ‘No, look, it’s about hormones. I’m on weekly injections, so if you’re staying in my body for a fortnight, you’ll need to do two of them.’

‘In-injections?’

‘Yeah.’ Lister pointed at what was currently, he supposed, technically _Rimmer’s_ thigh. ‘Into the muscle. The needles are under–’

But the sentence went unfinished, as Rimmer’s eyes rolled back in his head and he slipped ungracefully to the wet tiles.

* * *

‘I’m sorry,’ Rimmer said ruefully. ‘I wish I could, but I can’t.’

‘What if you watched me do it the first time?’ Lister, restored to his own body, couldn’t quite believe he was making the offer.

‘Lister, I’m familiar with the process of getting injections,’ Rimmer said with some asperity. ‘I just can’t do it to my own body. Your own body. Whatever.’

‘I can’t go two weeks without.’

‘What happens if you run out? You’d have to go without then.’

‘One, don’t wish that on me. Two, T is synthesisable even with only a basic lab and materials, these days. It was one of the first things I checked when I came out of stasis. And three, I’m not – I wasn’t the only trans man on board, so I can use their supplies if I run out.’

‘You weren’t? Who else was? I bet it was Todhunter.’

‘Rimmer! I thought you said you watched the vid.’

‘I did!’

‘Then you know that outin’ someone’s _wrong_.’

‘But he’s dead.’

‘I don’t care!’ Lister was starting to wish he’d never agreed to the body swap in the first place. ‘It’s not right.’

Rimmer held up his hands. ‘Pax. I’m sorry.’

Lister sighed. ‘I guess you’ve been pretty good about this, all things considered.’

‘Well, it’s... all right, I think it’s a bit weird. But for the sake of our friendship, I’m not going to drag it out into a big saga.’

Now Lister was well and truly suspicious. ‘For the sake of our friendship? What friendship?’

‘I am _trying_ to say the right thing here, Lister, but I don’t know what the right thing _is_!’ Rimmer’s face was drawn into a knot of frustration. ‘That vid said not to ask questions, to let people volunteer information, but I just–’

‘What do you want to know?’ Lister interrupted him. ‘Just ask, man. I’ll tell you to smeg off if it’s too personal.’

‘Mostly... did the JMC know? When you were recruited, I mean. Did you have to tell them?’

‘I didn’t _have_ to, but cos I wanted to get my T through the medi-bay instead of relyin’ on the post, I did.’

‘How did they take it?’

‘Like I said, I wasn’t the only one on board. It’s not weird, Rimmer. It’s just uncommon.’

‘ _Did_ Petersen and that lot know?’

‘Nah. Holly knew, Kris knew, a couple of the medi-bay staff knew, and anyone who had the right security clearance to get into the personnel records could’ve worked it out, but I don’t think anyone cared enough.’

‘What’s your real name?’

‘ _David Lister_.’

‘Sorry,’ Rimmer murmured. ‘Forgot that was on the vid.’

‘S’okay.’ It wasn’t, really, but Lister could think of worse.

Rimmer went quiet then, which to anyone else might have signalled the end of the conversation, but Lister hadn’t bunked with Rimmer all these years to not know when there was something on the other man’s mind. ‘What else? Spit it out.’

Rimmer shuffled in his seat, cheeks going pink. ‘Oh, well, I suppose... was Kochanski disappointed when the, er...’ He gestured to the packer, which Lister hadn’t bothered replacing in his underwear. ‘When the window-dressing didn’t match up to the final product?’

Lister grinned. ‘Who says it didn’t?’

‘Well, I...’

Lister got up and lifted his bunk’s thin mattress, and then delved into the storage space under it. ‘The packer’s for show. _This_ –’ he held up his leather harness, along with the attachment that had come marketed as _Robbie Rocket-in-Your-Pants!_ ‘–is for tell.’

Rimmer opened his mouth, closed it again, and then said, _‘Oh,_ ’ in a very small voice.

‘Besides, penetration’s not the be-all and end-all of sex,’ Lister said, fully aware that he was starting to sound like the world’s least erotic porno.

‘Some people would probably appreciate the size, though,’ Rimmer said. His gaze went from Lister’s face to the harness to the packer and finally settled firmly on the floor between his feet. ‘I imagine.’

Lister couldn’t keep from smirking; it was fortunate that Rimmer was so fixedly not looking at him. ‘Yeah... some people _love_ being filled right up.’

Rimmer’s cheeks went from pink to red, and the conversation did end then as he abruptly stood up and, without another word, scuttled crabwise out of the sleeping quarters, leaving Lister staring after him.

* * *

‘Well, that was enlightening,’ Holly remarked out of nowhere.

‘Hol! Smeggin’ hell, do I need Kryten to distract _you_ with shiny things too?’

‘You two _are_ my shiny things,’ Holly said, appearing on the wall monitor just in time for Lister to see the fond smile that went with her tone of voice.

‘Can’t you give us _any_ privacy?’

‘JMC regs, Dave; got to make sure the last remaining human isn’t planning to harm himself.’ She nodded at the harness. ‘You could do a lot of damage with that.’

‘ _Holly_!’ Lister dropped the toy back in its hiding place and put the packer away with it.

‘All right, all right. I suppose that means you don’t want to know where Rimmer keeps his dream recorder tapes, then.’

‘Why would I want to know that?’ He did, but that wasn’t the point.

‘‘Cause of the ones about you, of course.’ Holly’s smile slid from fond to lecherous. ‘Speaking of appreciating size, he thinks about some _very_ appreciative, how should I put this, _activities_...’

‘ _What_?’

‘But if you don’t want to know, I’ll be off, since you’re clearly not a danger to yourself this instant, and I really do need to get the skutters to do some dusting down on Floor 147...’ Her image was fading from the screen as she spoke.

‘Holly! No! Holly, come back! Smeggin’ hell, I’ll be a danger to _you_ if you’re not careful! Where are those tapes? _Holly_!’

He still wasn’t through with Rimmer, and they really were going to need to talk again, but Holly had her own way of holding shiny things out to distract him when the world was getting a little heavy. Besides, maybe it would give him a new angle on which to re-enter the conversation with Rimmer. So to speak.


End file.
